Secrets Long Ago
by Milica-tanja
Summary: "Congratulations Unohana-san, you are pregnant" The young captain looked like a deer caught in the head lights at her former mentor. "How..." She whispered. "I think the question is what now?" He corrected her... UkiUno / ShunNan/ HitsuMatsu/KaienMiyako
1. Chapter 1

Bleach ~  
Beta ~ TealEyedDragon

thank you sis for kicking me into line xxx

* * *

"Congratulations Unohana-san, you are pregnant"  
The young captain looked like a deer caught in the head lights at her former mentor.  
"How..." She whispered.  
"I think the question is what now?" He corrected her.  
"Tenjirō Kirinji-sama, I am keeping the baby without hesitation" unohana replied, head held high. "I will talk to the father of my baby"  
"Good luck, child" he smiled faintly. "No member of gotei 13 ever got pregnant and I am not sure how central 46 will react"  
"I will do what's best for my baby"

Later that day Unohana got the news about a declaration of war by vandereich and she decided to tell yamamoto about her pregnancy.  
At first he raged and lectured her about priorities and responsibilities that come with her position.  
When he cooled down he told her he'd have to report it to central 46 and she had to wait with telling the news to her lover.

The wait were the longest hours of her existence and when he finally returned, her world shattered.  
Central 46 was not happy with the news and demanded she'd keep it secret even from the baby's father.  
Unohana's heart screamed it was wrong to do so but her rational mind won it and she resigned herself in the decision made for her.

Due to being busy preparing his subordinates for the upcoming battles, Ukitake hadn't noticed the changes in Unohana. However Shunsui had, but he felt it was for the best if he didn't interfere in his friends private lives, despite wishing that he could.  
It was an inwardly battle he fought with himself but at last he went with his first instinct and didn't confront the young medic.

Ukitake was worried about Retsu in the back of his mind. So when the day came for her to depart to the zero squad, Ukitake left his division in the capable hands of his subordinates.  
When Unohana arrived at the gates, Ukitake was already there to see her off and she picked up Shunsui's reiatsu from up in a tree.  
Unohana half expected him already but it did not make her any less nervous to the point she was about to have an anxiety attack if he'd start with his interrogation.  
She took a deep breath and quietly faced him.  
"Retsu" he greeted with his usual smile and warmth but his eyes held many questions and even more concern for the woman he loved so much.  
Ukitake taichou" she replied politely. "It's very kind you came to see me off"  
Ukitake frowned at the formal tone. She only spoke such a way when trying to create a distance between them.  
The last time she did that was shortly after her captaincy about 50 years ago.  
"Yamada-san will see to your well-being for the next 7 to 8 months. Stay away from the cold, extreme heat and dust:

Why are you going for so long? And on the verge of war? You are our chief medic, sensei surely ..." he trailed off as he catched a flicker of irritation in Unohana's reiatsu

"It's an order from the spirit king himself, sensei has no role in this entire situation." Unohana explained, her entire demeanour strained .

"Are you losing your powers?"

"No, I will be going to expand my knowledge about medical herbs for healing battle wounds"

"For 7 whole months?" he replied dubiously.

"Yes for 7 months. Do you question my honesty, Ukitake-sama?"  
Ukitake let out a sigh and grudgingly decided to let the matter drop, "No of course not. Have a safe trip Retsu."  
"Thank you, Ukitake taichou" her gaze shifted to shunsui who stood a few feet away. He was like a little brother to her.  
"Shunsui-kun..."  
In a flash he was standing before them.  
She gazed up to him.  
He adjusted his hat, "Thought I'd come and see you off"  
"Don't drink yourself into oblivion. The war is approaching. Keep an eye on your best friend and don't get on sensei's nerves." She warned. "Don't eat instant noodles every day, eat your vegetables and fruit"  
"Yare yare, I can take care of myself, Retsu"  
"I know that" she lovingly smoothed his haori. "You are just impulsive and sometimes think sensei has nerves of steel" she took a deep breath. "Sayonara, shunsui-kun"  
"Just make sure you come back to us. Or I'll personally storm into squad zero and bring you back myself."  
She gave him a last sad smile and locked her eyes with Ukitake making a silent promise to return before waving goodbye and disappearing behind the gates.

7 months later

Unohana did her best not to cry out in pain as one contraction after the other hit concentrated on her breathing and got herself ready to push.  
She did not even know if it would be a boy or a girl because she struggled too much during her pregnancy to think of that.  
It had been hard combining the pregnancy and learning about healing herbs.  
She only knew the baby was quite temperamental by the kicking of it that often made her gasp for air.  
"Are you ready?" Tenjirō asked.  
She gave a small nod and pushed with all she had.  
After 3 times pushing, soft wailing filled the small room.  
"A girl" her mentor notified and handed the baby to her.  
Unohana cried as she cradled the baby and started feeding her. "She is so beautiful"  
The new mother was so absorbed by her baby that she barely felt the contractions until they build up to the extend she had to push again.  
Her eyes widened and she had to give her baby to one of the shinigami assistants of her mentor.  
She braced herself and pushed a few times.  
This time the baby announced its presence with roars and already a scowl on the tiny face.  
Unohana was delighted that she had a son and he eagerly drank his mother's milk. "Toushirou" she whispered and marvelled how much he resembled his father.  
Too wrapped up in the beauty of her babies, she didn't notice she was pushing again and one of the nurses quickly caught the baby she pushed out.  
"Nothing short of a miracle" the nurse smiled. "You have 3 healthy babies"  
Unohana was shocked but very happy.  
Her happiness was short lived though as she was brought the news of central 46 and the spirit king himself their decision.  
She had to give up her kids...


	2. Chapter 2

Bleach ~  
Beta ~ TealEyedDragon

thank you sis for kicking me into line xxx

* * *

"Unohana was back at her division and had work to catch up on. The war was raging in its full term not too far from gotei 13. Ukitake and Kyouraku were leading the troops together with ginrei Kuchiki, Isshin Shiba and sasakibe fukutaichou.  
She was supposed to read through the files from patients who sustained injuries from the latest designed weapons and find a way to keep the death rate that's caused by these weapons at a minimum.  
At any other time she'd effortlessly be able to keep her focus on the task, however for some unknown reason she felt restless.  
After trying to regain focus time and after time, she gave up on it and decided to meditate to centre herself again.  
As she slipped into a deep meditative state, she started hearing voices.  
They were faint and she could not fully grasp what they wanted from her but a few words were already enough to disrupt her mediation.  
In her head she started retracing her steps from the past events but soon she found herself hitting a blind wall.  
She was not the type to easily forget or discard anything at all yet she could not remember what she did the weeks beforehand.  
Yes, she was told that she was invited for a week at squad zero but 7 days absence would not create such a chaos in her always perfectly organised squad right?  
What did she do since the war started? When did it actually start?  
Vaguely she remembered sensei telling her about the declaration of war, then her mind jumped to shunsui's threat about personally taking her at squad 0 and then it went to the rushing of her former mentor to get her out of squad zero.  
The young medic tried and tried a whole while to remember in between the memory flares but just couldn't.  
How she longed for a good nap. She felt so tired and her breasts were very tender.  
Just wearing the usual binding made her wince internally from pain.  
She gave up on thinking for now and decided to head to the bathroom.  
Perhaps her period was near or already arrived.  
She was quite sensitive in her lower abdomen and between her legs too.  
It was definitely not the sensitive feeling of a night after the stormy lovemaking with Ukitake.  
Wait... How would she even know about stormy lovemaking?  
And of all people with her long time crush Ukitake.  
She felt her cheeks heat up at that thought.

Once in the bathroom she frowned at her image in the mirror.  
Perhaps the war was taking its toll on her too.  
Her hair was sticking out on all sides so she decided to undo her braid and comb her fingers through her hair.  
The young woman stared dazed at all the hair she held between her fingers.  
Hair loss was very rare at the un death.  
All the questions unanswered irritated her in a way she was never irritated before and she did something that would shock anyone who knew or had heard of her. She started crying.  
It was not the wailing crying sort, just the silent tears of frustrations.  
Why all the gaps?! Did she suffer from a head injury and now had to deal with amnesia?  
She felt her head for any lumps or signs of stitches or just any sign of an injury.  
The only thing she met with was a dry itchy scalp and hair like straw.  
As long as she could remember she had smooth shiny hair.  
A rather off handed compliment of a young stammering Ukitake went through her head. "Uhm...Unohana-san...y..your h..hair...it's so s..smooth...like the water surface of a koi pond"  
The memory made her smile despite her tears just to make her tears worse just a second later as she realised her hair was awful now.

The days passed by and Unohana worked nearly mechanically. Her usual passion for her work was gone.  
Yamamoto noticed this and summoned her.  
Now that she stood in front of him, he was inwardly shocked by her appearance.  
It was as if the fiery light inside of her died, leaving nothing more than a lifeless doll that breathed and handled on automatic pilot.


	3. Chapter 3

Bleach ~  
Beta ~ TealEyedDragon

thank you sis for kicking me into line xxx

* * *

About a week after unohana's meeting with yamamoto, the war reached its end.  
The captains managed to seal away Juha bach with help of the kidou corps.  
But as shunsui and Ukitake often said "in war there is no victory just survivors"  
Surprisingly it was not Ukitake who was severely wounded but shunsui.  
As he was brought in, Unohana could easily read the guilt that radiated off the exhausted captain of the 13th.

"Status" Unohana ordered.  
"Blood pressure low, pulse irregular and signs of a comatose state" the nurse summed up. "X-ray shows that the hooks pierced the aorta"  
Unohana mentally cursed those quincies and their weapons. She usually respected every race but the quincies declared war to them and according to yamamoto they shot the first arrow, instantly killing yamada, her lieutenant who was collecting herbs in the mountains.  
She pushed her anger and grief aside and started with the surgery.

Outside Ukitake stared lifeless at the white wall in front of him.  
He didn't even feel the cut on his forehead or the many cuts and scrapes on his limbs nor did he feel the fatigue.  
His thoughts were only focused on his best friend.  
"Don't worry, Retsu will get him successfully through the surgery" Shiba taichou tried to comfort him. "He is strong and will pull through"  
"I realize that" ukitake replied dully "it doesn't take away that it should have been me there"

**(Flashback)**  
_**The battlefield was filled with roars, clashes of swords, swishing of arrows and moans from the wounded ones.  
The kidou corpse was trying to seal away juha bach with help of sasakibe and isshin.  
Ukitake took it upon himself to heal the wounded ones enough to last them through the trip to the fourth.  
Just as he got up, he heard the sound of an arrow.  
He tried moving to dodge it but the arrow followed him.  
He closed his eyes, preparing for the burning pain but it never came.  
The only pain he felt was when his head collided with the ground and the arrow lightly grazed his shoulder.  
He looked to the side and saw his best friend on the ground, blood flowing from his chest wound and soaking his shihakuso.  
"Shunsui!"  
Then he did something he usually wouldn't do.  
He pulled out his zanpaktou and called upon his bankai.  
With that action he destroyed the remaining quincies and cleared the path for his colleagues to freely seal away the quincy leader  
. **_**(End flashback)**

After 6 hours of surgery, not without complications, shunsui was stable and brought to the recovery room.  
Unohana took off her OR clothing and went to wash her hands before going into the waiting room.  
Ukitake had fallen asleep while leaning against the doors of the OR.  
The young medic frowned at his state and gently woke him.  
Ukitake's green orbs snapped wide open. "Shunsui...!"  
"Is stable" Unohana replied calmly and took the captain in her usual no nonsense demeanour to her office.  
There she followed her usual routine. Clearing away the stacks of paperwork and putting the kettle on the stove to boil water for tea. "Let me treat your wounds"  
"No, I'm fine" Ukitake replied emotionless.  
"Ukitake taichou..." Unohana gazed sternly at him.  
"I don't deserve it"  
"Don't deserve what?" She questioned as she just went against his wishes and started cleaning his cuts for him.  
He hissed at the stinging of the disinfectant but remained silent for the rest.  
"What is it that you don't deserve?" She repeated. "Treatment? All members of gotei 13 have rights on medical treatment"  
"I don't de...ouch!" He winced as she pulled a glass shard out of his arm.  
He glanced up at her and she looked back unnerved.  
"Won't you use any sedation?"  
She looked serenely at him. "You said you don't deserve it so I just go through the basic routine of removing immediate dangers and don't give you a treatment"  
Ukitake clenched his teeth as she continued the torture. He was sweating from the effort not to cry it out from pain. "It should have been me there instead of shunsui...he took the arrow for me..."  
"Ah" Unohana replied, understanding his train of thoughts.  
"Everyone always thinks I am incapable of holding my own in battle...I am useless"  
"Have you ever tried to view it from others their point of view instead of going by how you feel?"  
He was silent at that.  
"Think it over" she advised. "Nothing is lost"  
He nodded silently and watched her clean up. "Retsu..."  
"Yes?" She responded while updating his patient card.  
He didn't respond but stepped over to her and wrapped his arms around her, hiding his face in her neck.  
Unohana was frozen on the spot but when she felt and heard his shaky breaths, she realised that the shock state was slowly starting to dissipate.  
She wrapped an arm around him and brought the other to his head to gently stroke his hair.  
No matter how many questions there were left unanswered, she knew one thing. Her friend needed her now more than ever and she could not deny him the comfort he desperately needed.


End file.
